Editorial: Hard on crime, soft on truth

Wednesday

Nov 28, 2007 at 12:01 AMNov 28, 2007 at 8:10 PM

Misplaced blame and fabricated fault are commonplace in an election when candidates focus on attempts to make their opponents look bad. In the process, they do little more than insult voters’ intelligence and sensibilities.

The Herald News

Misplaced blame and fabricated fault are commonplace in an election when candidates focus on attempts to make their opponents look bad. In the process, they do little more than insult voters’ intelligence and sensibilities.

Mitt Romney is the latest victim of a political smear campaign criticizing him for something he had nothing to do with. His response? To try to deflect criticism by smearing someone else.

Republican Rudy Giuliani is trying to brand Romney as weak on crime, citing the recent example of a convicted killer released in July after serving 16 years for killing his mother. While his sentence for manslaughter was complete, Daniel Tavares Jr., formerly of Somerset, was accused of assaulting two prison guards and threatening Romney’s life in a letter prison officials intercepted last year. A district court judge held Tavares on $50,000 bail. But Judge Kathe Tuttman overturned the ruling and freed Tavares on personal recognizance, ruling the evidence against him was not enough to keep him incarcerated.

Tavares soon after traveled to Graham, Wash., where he was arrested last week for allegedly killing two people.

Must be Romney’s fault.

So, just what, exactly, is Romney’s connection to the case? As governor of Massachusetts, he appointed Tuttman to the bench. That’s it. Romney, through spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom, was quick to point out that he apppointed Tuttman based on her 18 years of experience as a prosecutor and her history of being an advocate for victims.

Giuliani would have voters believe Romney is soft on crime because a judge he happened to appoint released a prisoner six months after Romney left office, and that prisoner is charged with killing again. Talk about grasping at straws. Then again, compared to Giuliani, Castro is soft on crime.

Apparently, Giuliani missed the civics lesson on separation of powers while he was ruling over New York City like an iron-fisted fascist. Someone should inform him the executive branch has no control over the judicial. Even if Romney was still governor when Tavares was released, he would have had no say in the matter.

Giuliani should also be reminded it was Romney’s life Tavares threatened. The threat was taken seriously enough that Massachusetts State Police warned Romney that Tavares may be living in Washington before a scheduled campaign stop there earlier in the month. Does Giuliani really believe Romney would have let Tavares out of prison if he had any control over the situation?

These are the things the former Massachusetts governor should have pointed out. It would have been refreshing to hear a presidential candidate offer a frank assessment of an executive’s authority and, especially, limitations. Instead, Romney — no doubt in a desperate attempt to show voters how tough on crime he really is — joined in misplacing the blame, calling for Tuttman’s resignation. "Her actions in this case are inexcusable," Fehrnstrom said.

Except they weren’t.

Whether one believes Tavares should have been released or not — and that fact is certainly worth debating — a judge has to follow the rule of law. As Chief Justice Barbara Rouse pointed out, "She is living every judge’s nightmare: that a principled decision based on the law and the information provided to her was followed by tragic events over which she had no control."

Whatever happened to blaming the person who is actually at fault — in this case, the alleged killer?